CCSF sues coffee shop operator over $127,000 in unpaid rent

Bean Scene failed to pay $127,000 owed, suit alleges

The downtown campus of the City College of San Francisco on the corner of 4th and Mission Sts., on Thursday May 31, 2012, in San Francisco, Ca.

The downtown campus of the City College of San Francisco on the corner of 4th and Mission Sts., on Thursday May 31, 2012, in San Francisco, Ca.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

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The downtown campus of the City College of San Francisco on the corner of 4th and Mission Sts., on Thursday May 31, 2012, in San Francisco, Ca.

The downtown campus of the City College of San Francisco on the corner of 4th and Mission Sts., on Thursday May 31, 2012, in San Francisco, Ca.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

CCSF sues coffee shop operator over $127,000 in unpaid rent

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A campus coffee shop once tied to a criminal scandal at City College of San Francisco is now accused of bilking the troubled school out of nearly $130,000.

College officials evicted the Bean Scene Organic Coffee Company from the Mission Street campus in downtown San Francisco in June after years of apparently ignoring or failing to notice a series of missing lease payments. Bean Scene's cafe was called The Organic Coffee Company.

College officials say Bean Scene owes $127,000 in back rent and other fees, and they are suing the cafe in San Francisco Superior Court. How City College let the money slip away over eight years lends support to findings of lax fiscal oversight from independent evaluators and an accrediting commission. The college is still struggling to remain accredited.

But the college's new leaders say the institution is emerging from its problematic past and they are running the college of nearly 80,000 students with sharpened attention.

They say the coffee shop cash is a case in point.

College records show the Bean Scene problem began with a couple of missing rent checks in 2006 and 2009. The cafe is accused of skipping its monthly $4,050 payments more often as the years went on, paying just two of the 14 months prior to the eviction.

City College's spokesman, Jeff Hamilton, acknowledged that the college was slow to address the issue. "But we've evicted them," he said. "That's the most significant thing."

Reached by phone in Cambodia, Bean Scene proprietor Amy Nget said she hadn't heard about the lawsuit.

"I need to call back to America because I didn't even know what had happened," she said, declining to comment further.

Cafe operators Hoa and Vannary Seng, also defendants in the case, could not be reached for comment. The Sengs had run the cafe in the campus at 88 Fourth St. for Nget since 2007, court records show.

E-mails show that the college initially moved to evict the cafe in October but relented when Nget asked for a few extra days so that she and her husband, Vannarith, could transfer the money. "Van and I will send funds to pay up the $72,000 but since we are still in Cambodia, we do need time to make the necessary transfer," she wrote to then-Vice Chancellor of Finance Peter Goldstein on Oct. 17, 2013.

But the cash never materialized, according to the college's court filings. By the time the college sued last month, its lawyers said the debt had ballooned to $127,000. Goldstein left the college late last year. Chief Financial Officer John Bilmont did not return calls. This isn't the first time Bean Scene has found itself brewing up controversy at City College.

In 2005, then-Chancellor Philip Day asked the college foundation, its fundraising arm, to find a cafe to lease space and bring in some cash for the school. The foundation found what they thought was a good deal - only to have Day overrule their choice and bring in Bean Scene instead.

Some foundation members suspected something fishy, and they resigned from the board in protest.

"Clearly something highly irregular was going on," recalled Will Weinstein, a professor of business ethics and one of the foundation members who stepped down.

Six years later, Day pleaded guilty to steering a $20,000 lease payment from Bean Scene to a political fund for a 2005 campaign to expand campus facilities. It is illegal to use public funds for campaigning. The money was later refunded, but the incident became part of a larger criminal investigation that also ended in guilty pleas for two other former administrators.

The administrators left, but Bean Scene continued doing business at City College. Until now.